THE LES LUTINS SHORT FILM SHOWCASE - Presented by Alliance Française Tucson
Wednesday, February 18th at 7:30 p.m.
Regular admission prices; $4.75 for Loft Cinema and Alliance Française Tucson members
Experience the year's best short films from France at this special cinematic showcase, co-sponsored by Alliance Française Tucson and The Loft Cinema, with the assistance of a Cultural Development Grant from the Federation of Alliances Francaises (USA).
Each year, a network of 2,000 French cinema professionals called Les Lutins cast their ballots to determine that year's 25 best French short films. Since 1998, Les Lutins du court-métrage (Leprechauns) has worked to promote the public distribution of French short films throughout the world. It has participated in the emergence of such major directors and actors as François Ozon, Jérémie Rénier, Ludivine Sagnier, Sylvie Testud and many others, thereby playing a vital role in discovering the new cinematic talents of tomorrow.
This year's Les Lutins short film showcase is a 2-hour program featuring an exciting sampling of the 2008 honorees for fiction, documentary, and animation. Hilarious, dramatic, moving and innovative, the shorts on display in the Les Lutins showcase represent the very best of modern-day French filmmaking. Some of the shorts will be having their US premiere as part of the current Les Lutins tour, one has garnered a 2009 Academy Award nomination for Best Short Film, and several have won other awards in prestigious film festivals in Annecy, Berlin, Abu Dhabi, San Miguel de Allende, Los Angeles, and Seattle.
Don't miss your chance to satisfy your cinematic sweet tooth by indulging in great French cinema, now in short film-sized portions!
This year's line-up includes:
**Please note that all films include English subtitles**
MAGIC PARIS
Director: Alice Winocour
Live Action
Kate is alone in Paris for the weekend. In this unfamiliar city, she will meet a man and his dog. Will this chance meeting change her life forever?
LUTINS AWARD FOR BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE: Johanna Ter Steege
THEIR FIRST JOURNEY (Premier Voyage)
Director: Grégoire Sivan
Animation
Chloé begins her 293rd day on earth. Her father begins his 10,935th. But today will be the first time that they'll have their first close encounter, during a train journey. This may be an opportunity for the father to discover the being who entered his life ten months ago.
LUTINS AWARD FOR BEST ANIMATION
*Cesar Award nominee for Best Animation .
THE OUTER LIMITS CHILD
Director: Pascal Mieszala
Live Action
A solitary house by a country road. Nothing but fallow fields under a winter sky as far as the eye can see. A child sits alone on the edge of a marker. He is waiting. He knows a car will come. He knows what he must do ...
IRINKA & SANDRINKA
Director: Sandrine Stoianov and Jean-Charles Finck
Animation
Fifty years separate Irene and Sandrine. One, a member of the Russian nobility, experienced the fall of the regime, the absence of an exiled father and her adoption by a new family. The other grew up dreaming about a former Russia, land of fairy tales.
MANON ON THE ASPHALT (Manon sur le bitume)
Director : Elizabeth Marre et Olivier Pont
Live Action
Manon's dress is just a spot on the pavement, the wheel of her bike spinning in the air. While everyone bustles around her, Manon's thoughts wander... it looks easy to die in the spring.
LUTINS AWARD FOR BEST PRODUCTION
*2009 ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE! BEST SHORT FILM / LIVE ACTION
*Winner, Abu Dhabi Black Pearl Award for Best New Director (Short Film).
*Winner of Canada's Worldwide Short Film Fest award for best live-action short.
SAINT FEAST DAY (La Saint Festin)
Director : Annelaure Daffis et Léo Marchand
Animation
"Hurrah! Tomorrow is the 40th of November! It's Saint Feast Day, the great celebration of ogres, so if you haven't caught a child yet, hurry up now ... and good hunting!"
PICK UP (Décroche)
Director: Manuel Shapira
Live Action
From her apartment, a young woman calls the phone box in front of her building. Strangers answer. Lea is too shy to meet others directly. When the trick she's invented works and even succeeds, Lea finds it hard to go back to reality.
*Winner of the Silver Bear Award for Best Short Film at the 57th Berlin Film Festival.
PLEASE NOTE: THIS PROGRAM IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE
For more information on these films, please visit the Les Lutins website:
www.leslutins.com